SIR CHARLES SPENCER “CHARLIE” CHAPLIN was born in 1889 in
London to impoverished parents. He began performing at age ten as a
member of a juvenile clog-dance troupe. In 1913, while he was
touring with a vaudeville act in the US, Keystone films recruited
Chaplin to make films. In only his second short—Kid Auto Races at
Venice—he debuted his “Little Tramp” character, and his fame
quickly exploded. He went on to write, direct, and star in some of
the most critically acclaimed movies ever made, including the
classics The Gold Rush, City Lights, The Great Dictator, Monsieur
Verdoux, and Modern Times—for which he also wrote the song “Smile,”
still a standard. In 1919 he founded the United Artists film studio
along with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith, and
in 1929, the first year of the Academy Awards, he won an award for
“versatility and genius” in The Circus. Chaplin’s career took a
dark turn during the McCarthy era, when he was accused of
“un-American activities” and monitored by the FBI; he would later
satirize the McCarthy committee in his A King in New York, but when
he visited the UK in 1952 his re-entry permit to the US was
revoked. Objecting to what he described as “lies and propaganda by
powerful reactionary groups,” he moved with his family to
Switzerland, where he would live until his death on Christmas Day
1977.
DAVID ROBINSON is a film critic and author and a biographer
of Charlie Chaplin. His Chaplin: His Life and Art is regarded as
the definitive book on the subject.
“The best autobiography ever written by an actor. An astonishing
work.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A moving picture of the hero himself. A truly fascinating
book.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The most original, virile book about the theater in a long, long
time.”
—Atlantic Monthly
“It holds the reader entranced. Every page can be read with
pleasure.”
—The Times, London
“The crucial artist of the twentieth century.”
—The New Yorker
“Among the greatest geniuses of film.”
—Roger Ebert
“Few men in this century in any field attained his stature with the
public.”
—The New York Times
“Chaplin was not just ‘big,’ he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst
onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and
relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over
the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of
Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. . . It is doubtful any
individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief
to so many human beings when they needed it the most.”
—Martin Sieff
“For me, comedy begins with Charlie Chaplin. I know there were
screen comedies before he came along . . . But none of them created
a persona as unique or indelible as the Little Tramp, and no one
could match his worldwide impact.”
—Leonard Maltin
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